Sunday 24 • 11 Sep 2016

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28Luke 15:1-10

Rev. Chris Udy

Jeremiah says:“I looked on the earth,and it was waste and void.I looked to the heavens and they had no light.I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking,all the hills moved to and fro.I looked and there was no-one at all,and all the birds of the air had fled.I looked, and the fruitful land was desert,and all its cities laid in ruinsbefore the Lord, before his fierce anger.”

At times over the last fifteen yearsJeremiah’s vision has seemed very real,and television screens all over the worldhave filled with ruin and destruction.Fierce anger, stored up for years,had been channelled into cold determinationand meticulous preparationfor a vengeance that some people thoughtwas their holy mission -a judgement spoken and purposed by God.‘For thus says the Lord’ - according to Jeremiah -‘The whole land shall be a desolation;yet I will not make a full end.Because of this the earth shall mourn,and the heavens above grow black;for I have spoken, I have purposed;I have not relented nor will I turn back.’

For most of us the first images we saw -fifteen years ago today,were like scenes from a Hollywood movie -planes and fireballs and shattering buildings -and we watched as much in fascination as in horrorto work out what was happening.At first everything seemed surreal -the planes seemed empty,the buildings just glass and steel,the explosions looked like hundreds of otherscreated by special effects teamsto fill the screen in a theatre or on TV -but as the truth sank init was the people who began to make it real.As the hours and days and weeks went bywe heard the names of people in the buildings,and saw photographs of the people in the planes,and heard the stories of firefightersand rescue personnelwho died when the buildings collapsedand we began to realisethat all these people had partners and children,friends and neighbours,and lives as full and as complex as our own.

Over the years since thenthe scenes have returned to our TV screens -from Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria;from Palestine and Israel;from nightclubs in Bali and Orlandoand theatres in Moscow and Paris;hitting home in Martin Place,and recently beside the beach in Nice.Again and again, as the news filtered through,we put names to the bodies and the faces;we heard stories of amazing courageand inspiring self-sacrifice;we learned about agonizing decisions -a mother allowed to rescue one childwhile forced to leave another -tragedies like the five-year-old girlfinally issued with the Australian passportthat would let her live with her father -only to have her mother killed while collecting it;heart-breaking, world-stopping imagesof the body of Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish beach,and Omran Daqneesh in an ambulance in Aleppo.Each time, as the stories emergedwe fleshed out the detail in sympathy:we wondered what partners were feeling,and what children were thinking,and how their neighbours and friends might react -and slowly - as we thought about the people -we started to understand what damage had been done,and what sorrow was building,and what the cost - the human cost – has been.

The Global Terrorism Database has recordedmore than 72 thousand terrorist incidentsover the last fifteen years,[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism]more than half of them in Iraq (16K), Pakistan,Afghanistan and India.The vast majority of these attacksdon’t rate high enoughto be mentioned in our news,but each one is as bloody and real for those involved.The true meaning of these tragedies -the true impact of anything that happens -can’t be measured in lists or numbers or pictures.It can’t be expressed in body bags or insurance dollarsor hours and pages of commentary either.The only truth that ultimately mattersis the human cost -measured one by one -the terror of a hostage on a bus or a plane,the trauma and shock of someonehiding from a shooter in an office or a nightclub,the pain of the injuries for someone caught an explosion,the dreadful days of waiting for news of a missing child,the grief and fearfor a child who’ll grow up without a parent,and the anger and hatred of damaged peoplewho will want to take revengeand carefully plan retributionon some nameless and faceless peoplewith the same cold determinationand religious or moral or political rationalisationthat have led to that list of tragedies.

That kind of religion, morality and politicsbegins and ends in Jeremiah’s vision -no people - no names or faces -the earth made waste and void -the land a desolation,and an angry, unrelenting God.

But that isn’t the God of the Gospel.Our reading from Luke’s Gospelbegins with a group of righteous folklooking for someone to blame and punishfor all the troubles of the world -and when they saw Jesus welcome and eat his mealswith people the righteous folk had decidedwere too bad and too dangerous to know,they chose him to grumble at -so he told them three parables.We read the first two today.‘Which one of you’ he saysaddressing each of them as persons,not all of them as a prejudice -‘which one of you,having a hundred sheep, and losing one of them,does not leave the ninety-nine in the wildernessand go after the one that is lost until he finds it?And when he has found it,he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.And when he comes home,he calls together his friends and neighbourssaying to them ‘Rejoice with me!For I have found my sheep that was lost’Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heavenover one sinner who repentsthan over 99 righteous personswho need no repentance.’

The God that Jesus reveals to usdoesn’t see races or classes or religious groups -God sees us one by one -living in relationship with others,and needing a community to belong to,but still one by one,making our own decisions,taking individual responsibility,accountable to each other and to him - one by one.If Christian faithand the democratic principlesand ideals that grew from ithave anything worth asserting and defendingit’s that insight -ultimately we understand the truthand discover the meaning of life one by one -we are also responsibleand accountable for the way we live - one by one.So - when we look for justiceand when we work for healingwe also look and work one by one.

The planes that hit the world trade centreweren’t directed by all Arabs or all Muslims,they were under the control of Muhammed Attaand Adnan Bukhari and his brother Ameer -and they weren’t trained and supportedby all the people in Afghanistan or Pakistan either -it looks like maybe 50 people were involved,working in tiny fundamentalist cells,financed by Osama bin Laden.There is still no demonstrable evidencethat connects any of them to Iraq,or Iraq to any weapons of mass destruction.Bombs in Bali and Jakartaharmed and killed as many Indonesiansas they did Australians,but they were planned and madeby Amrozi, and his brother Ali Imron,and their construction beganin a poverty-trapped Indonesian villagewhere the only schooling available -often the only education on offer still -was funded and delivered by extremistslike Abu Bakar Bashir.

Despite what’s happening in Syria and with ISIS,terrorism is rarely about territory.Its perpetrators and victims can’t be dividedby nationality, or race, or even religion.Many, many more Muslim peoplehave been killed or woundedor driven from their homesby Islamic terroriststhan people of all other religions, or none –and in the US, for example,Christians launch more terror attacks (94%) than Muslims.Terror’s battle lines can’t be drawn on mapsor targeted by even the smartest of bombs -and military action seems to have done little morethan polarise the world,dry up good intelligenceand deepen the resentment and despairthat terrorism thrives on.Justice isn’t served by blowing up more innocentsor throwing away the principles of justice and fair trialwe’ve taken more than 800 years to put in place.Healing will not come with vengeance,and all the bluster and posturing in the worldwill not restore us to the way we wereor make it impossiblefor one person to let their anger and fear explodeto do harm to many others.

Our security and hope can never comeby filling the world with weaponsor dividing the world with fences and walls.The only way we can live in peace and freedomis to continue the work that Jesus began -one by one, looking for those who are lostin the debris and destructionof bombsites and battle zones,and anywhere else around the worldwhere desperation makes breeding grounds for terror.One by one rejoicingwhen those who are lost come homeand find healing for their anger and fear.One by one teaching them what it meansto take responsibility for themselves and others -and celebrating every step towards repentanceand freedom from violence and retribution.

All that might seem too hard,and the numbers might seem overwhelming,and it might seem so much easierto look for military solutionsor to isolate ourselves in fear,but it’s worth rememberingthat the vision of a world of peace and freedomwe’ve come to treasure for ourselvesand hope will be real for children like Christopheris profoundly based on the life of Jesus,who searched for and called and taught his disciplesone by one,and put himself at risk for what he believed.When we celebrate baptismwe do it one by one,affirming the love and grace of Godfor every one of his children.When we celebrate baptismwe also affirm that everyone -every one of God’s children –has a part to play and is calledto hope and work for a world at peace,reconciled and renewed.

When Jesus died he was alone -killed by people who filled ridgelines with crossesthinking that threats and fearwould keep their enemies at bay.People thought of him as a loser -just one weak and dangerously foolish man,the only one who trustedthat the God of love and grace was strongerthan a God of anger and vengeance -but over the last 2000 yearshis vision has transformed the world,as Jesus has been joined – one by one –by millions who see the world as it is,incomplete and damaged and divided,but still beautiful, and able to be redeemed.If we’re horrified by what we’ve seenover the last fifteen yearsit’s partly because we’ve come to believe, as Jesus did,that everyone - every one -has the right and the potentialto live in freedomand to grow in peace.So if we want Christopher’s life,and the lives of millions of children like himto see the earth’s beautyand to live into their promise and potential,each of us – one by one –will need to do what Jesus didand hope and pray and workfor the world’s renewal and redemption.